Mother loses bid to ban Harry Potter books  |
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 Mother loses bid to ban Harry Potter books
Georgia mom vows appeal after Board of Education rejected request
Updated: 2:40 p.m. ET Dec 14, 2006
ATLANTA - The Georgia Board of Education voted Thursday to uphold a local school board’s decision to leave Harry Potter books on library shelves despite a mother’s objections.
The board members voted without discussion to back the Gwinnett County school board’s decision to deny Laura Mallory’s request to remove the best-selling books.
Mallory, who has three children in elementary school, has worked for more than a year to ban the books from Gwinnett schools, claiming the popular fiction series is an attempt to indoctrinate children in witchcraft.
“It’s mainstreaming witchcraft in a subtle and deceptive manner, in a children-friendly format,” said Mallory, who is considering a legal challenge of the board’s ruling. “The kind of stuff in these books — murder and greed and violence. Why do they have to read them in school?”
Gwinnett school officials have argued that the books are good tools to encourage children to read and to spark creativity and imagination. Banning all books with references to witchcraft would mean classics such as “Macbeth” and “Cinderella” would have to go, they said.
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, published by London-based Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, have been challenged 115 times since 2000, making them the most challenged texts of the 21st Century, according to the American Library Association.
The challenges most often claim that the series encourages children to question adult authority and promotes witchcraft, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the deputy director for the association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16204853/
What do you guys think of this? Personally I think it's bullshit but that's just me!
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1.  CarlJennings (1573) | 4 years ago |  And so she should have done. Harry Potter is the best thing that has come out of this country since....I well i would say sliced bread but i dont know if that was from here!
Anyway....
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 emisle (1702) | 4 years ago |  O come on! HP is a STORY, if anything it shows kids how powerful and wonderful the imagination can be. and it shows good triumphing over evil...well hopefully in the 7th book it'll go that way. I'd be encouraging my kids to read those books.
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 rmuxagirl (6617) | 4 years ago |  Harry Potter is a good series. The murder greed and violence are from the evil side of the story. If this lady looked at the good side she would have seen that it promotes friendship, and love since his greatest power was his mother's love.
If we ban books with references to witchcraft then ALL fantasy based novels would be banned. As well as classics like Macbeth, Cinderella, A Mid Summer Night's Dream, Snow White and more.
Trying to ban the book is going a little too far.
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2.  wyrdsister (427) | 4 years ago |  Oh for heaven's sake. The'll try and ban Harry Potter books but probably encourage their children to read the more gruesome parts of the Bible. I still fail to see how Harry Potter stories are somehow luring children into witchcraft. Harry Potter isn't like a real witch at all!;) Maybe the luring is far to subtle for me.;)
Yep, I call bullsh*t on all those lawsuits as well. Can't they just be happy that their children can read and are interested in the written word??
~Wyrdsister
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| eagleye (7) | 4 years ago |  Seems like enough time has past since the Harry books came out but hey, I did"t let my kids read them. I heard the interview with the author of the books and she said"I wrote these books to encourage kids to practice witchcraft". I believed her since she is the author. Maybe after years of these books being read and movies being watched we might have a statistic on how many kids were encouraged?
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| 3. thewatchlist (362) | 4 years ago |  When I heard about this it reminded me of the knuckle heads here that made up signs and protested the movie at the local theater. They were protesting based on nonsense they had heard at their church.
I don't like Harry Potter, but I really don't like idiots who don't know what they are screaming about. We had someone right a letter to the editor about how Harry Potter boiled babies and all this other silliness. It's from a chain letter that was going around the internet at the time. The funny part is that the lady didn't realize that all the evils mentioned in her Harry Potter message were actually stories from the bible (including the people boiling and eating babies).
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| sirensanssmile (2784) | 4 years ago |  Can't this lady just ban HER OWN children from reading them? Why does she think she has the right to decide what OTHER children can and can not read? Is she the mother to the whole school?
I can not stand people that think they have the right to control what other people can and can not see according to their own feelings about it. They just want to ban everything.
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| 4. jmcafam (2270) | 4 years ago |  She should just not have her kids read it.It is just a book people.There are books that are probably worse in that library.
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| 5. Tynnac (3002) | 4 years ago |  Well I thought that I was mad,but this mum has gone over the top!!! Harry Potters books are really great and the kids love it,Im glad that she did lose!!!
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| 6. gabs8513 (19771) | 4 years ago |  What a load of Rubbish that is
Harry Potter is good and what is her Problem
So it is good then for the Kids to believe that there is a Fairy Godmother who gives you a Cart and a lovely Dress and that falling in love is so easy
or Snow white it is ok that a Stepmum is trying to kill the Stepdaughter
I am sorry but to me no matter what there is it could encourage Kids to things thats why we Adults educate them
She needs to get a Life as far as I am concerned
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| 7. emarie (4472) | 4 years ago |  you know what...if the kids want to read them, then why not...why ban Harry Potter...the shcool board made a right desision to deny that person...its awful what people try to do. these are kids...harry potter does encourage witchcraft...and you should teach your children to be more creative and maybe they can become like JK Rawlings and write a book series as popular like that one day...one can only hope...SO READ ON CHILDREN!!!
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 Smolaru (516) | 4 years ago |  yup she doesn't let her kids to stimulate their imagination
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| 9. visitorinvasion (3604) | 4 years ago |  Didn't that lady hear that book-burning was outlawed?
Sheesh! No censorship! Boooo!!!
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| 10. Kylalynn (1150) | 4 years ago |  Harry Potter books are great. They are interesting and keep the child involved in the book, therfore expanding there reading and spelling skills. As for witchcraft, most of the children it is a story and therefore makebelieve. I won't stop any child reading Harry Potter books!
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